Ironman Wisconsin 2011 Race Report

Quick statistics:

• 73:51 swim (4 minute PR on course)
• 6:54 T1 (1:46 PR)
• 5:46:52 bike (2 minute PR)
• 2:29 T2 (2:34 PR)
• 4:12:53 run (34 min PR)
• Total 44 min PR vs 2009
• 22/271 age group starters; 22/237 age group finishers; 253/2243 finishers
• 2243 started/2449 finished = 8.4% DNF

Executive summary:  I am basically pleased, though I had hoped for a better time.  Run and bike went well.  I gambled on the run and paid for it; the last 2/3 of the run was very, very painful.  Overall, a B+ for doing well at parts of the race and gutting out the run.

Prerace

In the week before the race, there was an unfortunate confluence of many things happening in my professional and family life, and I didn’t have the ability to sleep or mentally prepare as you would like.  Nonetheless, I resolved to make due and get everything done Friday before the race as much as possible to at least give myself Saturday to rest and mentally prepare.  Cynthia was not thrilled with the idea of leaving for WI at 5:00 a.m. on Friday, but we got out the door (also with my mother) and made our way to Madison.  Friday morning, we met up with the EN crew for a bit and got a friend his wallet who had left it home the day before.

Check-in was smooth, except for my weigh-in.  They put me down for 158 lbs, which I knew to be crazy.  I had not weighed myself for the last week of taper, but I had been 143-145 lbs up to that point.  Give it 2-3 lbs for time of day, maybe another 2-3 in water weight from taper, and 5 lbs for clothes, but this still seemed crazy high.  Not that this mattered, but it comes up later… (Other people in line who used the same scale also thought their weight was quoted high to them.)

The rest of Friday and Saturday went pretty much as planned.  I managed to sleep well on Friday night and even got a Saturday afternoon nap.  Lunch was the last big meal.  At dinner with TRI racer friends, I had a small pizza that I removed 90% of the cheese from, so it was basically bread with tomato sauce and a bit of cheese and spices.  I drank quite a bit of G2 throughout the day.

Saturday evening, I showered and shaved and put on a thick layer of Bullfrog sunscreen before bed.  At 2:00 a.m., I got up and chugged two Naked Juice smoothies (about 750 cal) and was able to go to sleep again until 4:00.  Another thick layer of sunscreen, get dressed, and drink more G2 for the rest of the morning….

The big excitement of the morning getting to the race was that the car wouldn’t start!  Fortunately, we carry a backup battery in the car, and this also went fine.  I got to transition, and pumped up my tires, only to find I had not brought my electrical tape to close up my “gap” on my disc cover.  Oh well.  I tried to just let it go.  Evidently most of my friends had already been in and out of bikes by the time I got there.

I stayed in transition area until it started getting light because I need my glasses.  At that point, I handed them off to Cynthia.  There was no line at the helix, so we just walked down.  Getting into the wetsuit was leisurely and there was plenty of time.

Swim

I wanted to beat the crowd into the water, so I went in very shortly after they started letting folks into the water.  I made my way past the ski jump and hung out between there and the buoy line.  This also enabled me to do a brief warmup.  As people came in – closer to the gun time – I just looked for a less-dense area in that range. 

My swim goal had been to be “strong” and not get lost behind the churn in such a way that would cost me 10 minutes or something.  I had predicted 75 min time, with 70 minutes as a dream time.  I lined up 5-10 people back from the start, and when the start came, I was off.

I was fortunate that my choices worked out.  The swim was crowded, but not crazily for me.  There were long stretches where I was able to tactically draft.  I did have a bit of a delay at the first turn, but nothing that caused me to actually stop swimming.  I cannot overemphasize how I love the knowledge of this swim course being 800/200/800/200 and the buoys so easy to follow.

I got to the end of the first loop finally, wondering how I was doing, so I looked at my watch, and saw 35 min.  Awesome.  On the third 800, something not-awesome happened…I got an abdominal cramp.  I decided that there was nothing to do about it but keep swimming, but I knew I was going a little slower.  After 10-15 minutes, it resolved itself and I felt a lot better.  My watch said 73:40 when I got out of the water.  I figured that between the cramp and the extra time to get back to shore, this was a good result for the second lap.  I left the swim pleased.  Not extatic, but pleased.

T1

Another big plus from the swim was that I was not exhausted or incoherent.  Out of breath?  Yes.  But unable to run up the helix? No.  I have a 2-minute improvement in T1 in part because I exited the swim in better shape than I did in 2009.  I had to get and dump out my own bag, but this is not a big delay.  A volunteer delayed me maybe 15 seconds trying to mess with my number.  I had worn it under the wetsuit, but the low quality paper had scared me, so I had stashed the second race number in my T1 bag in case my number got ruined on the swim.  The volunteer (understandably) got confused and was trying to put on the number, blah blah blah.  However, he paid me back by letting me leave without stashing my wetsuit.

Bike

I had predicted a 5:45 bike time, thinking 5:40 would be my miraculously good time and anything under 5:50 would be fine.  Statistically, my bike came out almost perfect with my work goals:

• ·      163 W NP (target 161)
• ·      153 W AP (target 155)
• ·      NP 1.07 (high due to judicious coasting in certain places, not spikes)
• ·      IF 0.71
• ·      TSS 270-278, depending on which software I believe.

My display had current W,  lap average W and total average W, among other things.

I took the first “stick” easy, between 5-10 watts down from targets.  I had a bottle of InfiniT and a bottle of water, plus 2-3 gels in my bento.  I was riding fine, mostly getting passed.  Once I got to the loop, I decided it was time to get going, and cranked up to my target.  Always looking for a current W in the low 160s and keep the lap average power near 155.  I took laps about every 30 min after the first 45 min.

My first mistake on the bike came on a very early aid station (first or second).  I tossed both my home-brought bottles…the water was almost empty, but I had not yet started to eat much.  It was a water-only exchange!  Ouch!  After this, I wisely decided to take a gel at most of the aid stations whether I needed it or not, just to have some on board.  This turned out to be good, because I got one bottle of Perform that had a faulty lid (or at least one I could not get to stop leaking all over me) and had one bounce out at a railroad crossing.

Aside from this, I simply spent the bike trying to do it as wisely as possible.  I kept my max watts down and kept drinking and eating.  After things settled down a bit, I almost got to the point of laughing at a handful of guys who kept beating me up hills and letting me catching them going down.  I had learned the ride well enough that I knew where to apply some good downhill watts to get back up hills.  This worked great except for a spot where an oncoming semi took up almost 2/3 the road….

I very much enjoyed seeing Cynthia on the bike course.  I kind of wondered where my mom was, but figured she was just standing back, since Cynthia didn’t say anything.  There were some funny signs, and I ran into a couple friends along the way.  Other than fighting the water bottles that didn’t fit the cages and the railroad crossing that bumped anything out of them, my only problem was some hot-foot on my right side that I knew would be relieved by lowering pressure on the sole.  I loosened the strap on the front of the shoe and this helped but did not quite solve the problem.

I made a judicious decision in the last hour to let off the gas a bit on the downhills when there weren’t up-and-down features to get over.  I was feeling strong, but definitely the wear of 100 miles was there, so I was trying to preserve my leg strength.  However, I did make one mistake.  My GPS had my bike split a couple of miles too long, and I “checked out” too soon.  I probably rode 3+ miles with my feet on top of my shoes.  Was there even a full minute of time lost?  Probably not, but it was frustrating and a little mentally unbalancing to think you are almost done when there are 2-3 miles left.

I knew I had reached the end in good shape when going up the helix was almost fun.  However, this is where I made my second, and more critical mistake.

I knew the temps would be near 80, and that my “ideal” run time would be around 8:30 pace for the opening and 8:00 after.  But I felt great and did not feel hot, so I decided that instead of backing that down as I should have, I would start at 8:30 and see how it felt…if we were lucky on the temps and I kept myself cool, maybe I could hang on to 8:30 for the whole time.  This decision – and not knowing that it was hotter than 80 degrees (or shortly would be)  - undid my run.

T2

T2 was very uneventful and fairly quick.

Run

The IM splits tell the whole story:

RUN SPLIT 1: 8.9 mi	8.9 mi (1:15:22)	8:28/mi
RUN SPLIT 2: 13.2 mi	4.3 mi (39:40)	9:13/mi
RUN SPLIT 3: 21.95 mi	8.75 mi (1:29:34)	10:14/mi
RUN SPLIT 4: 26.2 mi	4.25 mi (48:17)	11:21/mi

My first 8 miles or so didn’t hurt that bad, and 8:30 was pretty easy.  I managed to feel cool (or at least not too hot) by keeping ice in my shorts.

But I had cooked myself.  My groin and the lower medial muscle attached to my knee (next to quads) started to SCREAM. I was in a lot of pain.  I managed it by running whatever pace I could go, then taking 20 steps, then starting again.  I never walked more than that, with the exceptions of Observatory hill and one other short hill, but I ended up taking the breaks more frequently.  The 20 step discipline, though, was key.  No “until the bush” or whatever.  I did not count my steps at aid stations, but I decided this was a necessity, since they were not as well organized as I had hoped.  Sponges were often warm; drinks came in different orders, etc etc etc.  But I never walked more than a couple of steps past the aid station either.

My mile-to-mile splits just kept getting slower and slower.  My shoes were sloshing with water from all the ice and sponges.  My young son delights in the image I told him of being in the big burlap bag with the Big Man With The Stick hitting you.  Well, unfortunately, that was where I was.  As poor as my run was, I am proud of the effort I put in on it.

Post race

As I crossed the line, I knew I was in bad shape because of all the suffering I had done on the run.  I got taken to the med tent and re-weighed.  Although I had been drinking constantly and never felt thirsty, they declared me to be over-dehydrated because my post race weight was in the 140s.

You may recall that my pre-race weight seemed crazy high.  Maybe this worked to my advantage.  I got a liter of IV fluid and felt a lot better.  Oh yeah, and 3 bottles of Perform, and felt like never drinking anything again.  They sent me home, which was too bad, because I didn’t get to watch some friends finish, but it was probably for the best.

Analysis

I give this race a solid B+, even though I thought I was in shape to break 11:00

• I was in shape and good weight.  My bike and run fitness were solid and had not fallen dramatically.  My swim fitness was peaked for sure.
• I executed the swim well.  I might have taken a couple more minutes off from a harder effort.  I definitely would have taken less time without the cramp.  That, however, is racing, and I am completely satisfied.
•  My bike season has been an odd one.  It has been a season of consolidation rather than gains.  I did not have any bike PRs at the half distance.  However, what fitness I did bring, I extended its distance-worthiness effectively.  I did not feel at any point terribly strained on this bike ride.  I executed as planned.  No miracles happened.  I made one very good decision (getting gels), one modestly bad one (underestimating the remaining distance of the leg), and one terrible one (underestimating the temperature).  For the bike leg itself, again, I feel good about the effort.  The VI looks high at 1.07, but this is partly a function of my relatively low FTP of 230 W.  I just can’t get up some of those hills at all without putting out 200+ W.  Again, I am satisfied that I did the best I could with what I had that day.
• I blew my race on the run with hubris.  I knew I had a good day going and I bet on pushing it for a statistically very good day.  I will never know what would have happened if the temps stayed around 79-80, but even then, I was probably too ambitious.  I managed to FEEL fairly cool in my white top and with the ice and I did not know what was happening with the real temps.  This said, I live with my decision.  I would advise myself against it doing things again, but I won’t beat myself up about it. I am pleased with my mental strength.  If I had known I was 30 seconds behind a couple more guys in my AG, maybe I could have caught them to get into the top 20.  But I did not and I did not.

This race probably fairly reflects where I am as a racer.  Pretty good.  Definitely above average…but having to have a perfect day to get into the sub-elite.  That didn’t happen for me.  I still put together a good overall performance, if not quite the one I was capable of, even on the day.  (I think I would have netted a faster run by slowing down more at the beginning.)  But it was close enough for me to feel good about it, and I know that – the one critical bad judgment aside – I left absolutely everything I had on the run course, given the pain and psychology of the day.